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digeridoo

152 karma · joined June 22, 2012

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digeridoo··on The Web Is Becoming Smalltalk
Applets were always the answer. Amazing how badly a technology can fail because of start-up time.
digeridoo··on Einstein Was Right: Space-Time Is Smooth, Not Foamy
Proof is a word that shouldn't be used lightly. I don't think anyone would see this as proof that quantum foam doesn't exist. The laws of physics allow for quantum foam to happen, which may lead us to start looking very differently at the structure of the universe. However, we now have some strong evidence from measurements over a reasonably large distance that quantum foam is not an immediately noticeable factor in the universe.

I kind of liked quantum foam as a possible way of explaining gravity observation that are not explained by the amount of visible matter and thus attributed to 'dark matter', because 'matter' is the only thing we know that would cause gravity. This tells me I shouldn't get too excited about that possibility.

digeridoo··on Einstein Was Right: Space-Time Is Smooth, Not Foamy
The article is a bit dodgy in this regard. It just means that at a quantum level, the energy fluctuations (as observed in this experiment) are not big enough to cause significant space-time alterations.
digeridoo··on U.S. health is lousy compared with peer nations, report says
Perhaps I'm tired, but how can the Japanese life expectancy figure be higher when considering fatal injuries?
digeridoo··on The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C
Last time I checked in C, all pointer types where the same storage size. There's no need to define the same data structure multiple times by using templates. You just use casts.
digeridoo··on The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C
What's so confusing about the term virtual machine? It's an abstraction of the underlying machine.
digeridoo··on Process Partitioning in Distributed Systems
Also known as: embarrassingly parallel problems.
digeridoo··on New Year’s Resolutions for the Java Developer
Java is a language for people good at resisting temptation. It gives you all sorts of ways to make your code look nicer, more elegant, but the only way to be productive in Java is to avoid all of them.

In my experience, you can be more productive in Java than in any other language, because it has by the best tools and libraries. However, don't use reflection, don't use cloning, avoid automatic (de)serialization, don't doc needlessly, don't separate interface and implementation when you don't have to, use refactoring and code generation, don't feel bad about code duplication.

Most of all, always consider that coding is cheap. Changing a constant? Easy, not hard. Changing interfaces? Easy, not hard. Introducing an alternative implementation? Easy, not hard. Changing names? Easy, not hard. Adding new types? Easy, not hard. You don't need to think about easy things in advance, think about the problem instead.

digeridoo··on Root Domain Support for Amazon S3 Website Hosting
Last noteworthy S3 outage was in 2008.
digeridoo··on Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
I never quite understood fitness. I bought some weights 2 years back and found a light exercise routine I like enough to do it daily. Works like a charm.
digeridoo··on New school C
> today’s programmer can even go so far as to question the usage of malloc

In old school or new school C, there's every reason to minimize the use of malloc and it's easy to avoid.

digeridoo··on Central bankers rethink their devotion to slaying inflation
Well, if the money supply kept up perfectly with economic growth then the value of money would stay the same. Inflation is extra money supply expansion.
digeridoo··on Show HN: Parsify, instant markup conversion for developers
1.5 cents for a simple function call?
digeridoo··on The economic return of Iceland has proved that the joke was on Ireland
If you fall deep you have a long way back up. It's worth nothing that Ireland still out-performed Iceland over the past 10 years.
digeridoo··on Why a Computer Science Degree Matters
People who don't get college, don't get college.
digeridoo··on Want to learn to code? Don't copy and paste, type out other people's code
The website in question might not have proper Cache-Control headers, so the page may have never gone into the cache.
digeridoo··on 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world
I don't see any reason to reinterpret this as an anti-government pamphlet. It's just pointing out that economic conditions and mentality are changing around the world, but that this is often overlooked in the news cycle because politicians don't report on it when it is not their personal achievement.
digeridoo··on 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world
Come on you incorrigible pessimists, lighten up. There is obviously some tongue-in-cheek and inaccuracies in the article, but also some profound truth. This is the greatest time in history to be alive as a human and we might as well recognize that.
digeridoo··on Google Revenues Sheltered in No-Tax Bermuda Soar to $10 Billion
Don't be evil.
digeridoo··on [dead]
The industry is still growing faster than the number of computer science graduates. Don't wait for it.
digeridoo··on Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition for the iPad
No one represents a lot of people, but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people holding off on upgrading to iOS 6.
digeridoo··on Something really scary is going on in Germany
Not all bad. http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/9/3009157/netherlands-net-neu...
digeridoo··on NASA releases stunning photos of Earth at night
Then why do we destroy the part of the habitat that provides us with oxygen and stable climate?
digeridoo··on ttf.js - A JavaScript TrueType Font Engine For Modern Browsers And Node.js
nice, do you know if there is a reliable way to PUT binary data using XHR in JavaScript?
digeridoo··on Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot
Why should there be a catch if you're paying $14/GB? Not exactly a bargain. There are very similar offerings like the one from Virgin mobile at a similar price point.
digeridoo··on Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot
That seems like it might be driven more by a lack of supply than a lack of demand. Why not have Spotify on all the time?
digeridoo··on Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot
or the future of the remaining 99%...
digeridoo··on Google cuts Cloud Storage prices another 10% after Amazon S3 price cut
http://aws.amazon.com/free/
digeridoo··on Google Drops Pricing On Cloud Storage by 20%
If doing it two days earlier can be considered reactionary...
digeridoo··on Mozilla quietly kills Firefox 64-bit for Windows
Itanium is the future.
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